Joseph William Sterrett

TY - JOUR

T1 - “‘On my word’: Trust and the Word in Romeo and Juliet”

AU - Sterrett, Joseph William

N1 - Vol. 71, 2018/4

PY - 2019/2

Y1 - 2019/2

N2 - Abstract: Romeo and Juliet is a play that seems fascinated with the status of words and their substantive value. Over and over again the question is raised whether the meanings of words can be trusted or, more importantly, whether the one who utters them can be trusted. This repeated focus — famously culminating in Juliet’s “What’s in a name?”—is keyed to wider philosophical debates that underpinned many of the Reformation disputes that were so important at the time. Indeed, the playwright’s handling of this theme suggests the play could be his oblique contribution to these debates, a contribution that tied trust and the word to the same conditions of performance that were so familiar to him on the stage.

AB - Abstract: Romeo and Juliet is a play that seems fascinated with the status of words and their substantive value. Over and over again the question is raised whether the meanings of words can be trusted or, more importantly, whether the one who utters them can be trusted. This repeated focus — famously culminating in Juliet’s “What’s in a name?”—is keyed to wider philosophical debates that underpinned many of the Reformation disputes that were so important at the time. Indeed, the playwright’s handling of this theme suggests the play could be his oblique contribution to these debates, a contribution that tied trust and the word to the same conditions of performance that were so familiar to him on the stage.

KW - Romeo and Juliet

KW - Shakespeare

KW - Luther

KW - Erasmus

KW - the Word

M3 - Journal article

VL - 71

SP - 409

EP - 423

JO - Etudes Anglaises

JF - Etudes Anglaises

SN - 0014-195X

IS - 4

T2 - Trust and Risk in Literature

Y2 - 29 April 2016 through 1 May 2016

ER -